Advice re. Economy 7 (should I ditch it?)

ajm71

Hi

My flat currently has an Economy 7 supply. The hot water cylinder has 2 elements, and it appears the lower one comes on when the E7 rate kicks in. The upper one is, I assume, boost ..?

The living room, main bedroom and passageway have storage heaters. The second bedroom (my study) has an electric panel heater.

I'm wondering whether Economy 7 is actually saving me money, so I'd really appreciate some advice.

• I don't use the storage heaters. They're useless. I'm only home in the evening, by which time they've cooled down despite the grilles being closed. Most of the time I'm in the study anyway, which is heated by the panel heater (and the PC throws out plenty of heat too!). I have a couple of portable heaters with timers for the bedroom and living room, if needed.
• The remainder of my electricity use is cooking in the early evening (electric hob and oven). And maybe the dishwasher afterwards (doesn't have a delay timer to set it to wash overnight).
• The washing machine does have a delay timer so I usually use that. But I'm on my own and don't do many washes anyway, and rarely do I use the tumble drier.

So I'm wondering whether my energy use profile doesn't fit with Economy 7. My main concern would be the water heater. I guess that kicks in at about 01:00 and continues heating for 7 hours when the circuit switches off. Is that correct? There is an electronic timer but I'm not sure if that means I can only have it come on maybe for a couple of hours in the morning before I get up. I had hoped to include a pic of the timer but apparently I can't post links ...

Thanks in advance for any advice.

AndyPK

If you really never turn the storage heaters on then ditch it.

If they are on but you think they do nothing, then you probably need to keep e7!

Jonesya

Ideally you'd probably want something like an Economy 10 tariff, which is like E7 but with extra hours in the afternoon before 4PM - to heat up storage heaters before you get home, but suppliers aren't really prompting this any more as it's obsolete now because of the metering required.

If you stay in the flat, it's worth monitoring the situation as in coming years you're likely to get more of these flexible time of use tariffs being launched again once smart meters get rolled out.

D_M_E

You're probably wasteing energy and money if you keep the lower immersion permanently on.

Try putting it on the timer to come on for maybe 2 hours before the E7 rate cuts off, should be enoughfor a morning shower and may still be warm enough in the evening if the tank is well insulated.

Since the vast majority of your useage is during the expensive hours, look at what it would cost on a single tariff and if you feel that it would be cheaper, ask your supplier if you can have a single rate meter.

Single rate meter supply would most likely have lower standing charges than a dual rate meter too.

Skools_Out

ajm71 wrote: »

Hi

My flat currently has an Economy 7 supply. The hot water cylinder has 2 elements, and it appears the lower one comes on when the E7 rate kicks in. The upper one is, I assume, boost ..?

The living room, main bedroom and passageway have storage heaters. The second bedroom (my study) has an electric panel heater.

I'm wondering whether Economy 7 is actually saving me money, so I'd really appreciate some advice.

• I don't use the storage heaters. They're useless. I'm only home in the evening, by which time they've cooled down despite the grilles being closed. Most of the time I'm in the study anyway, which is heated by the panel heater (and the PC throws out plenty of heat too!). I have a couple of portable heaters with timers for the bedroom and living room, if needed.
• The remainder of my electricity use is cooking in the early evening (electric hob and oven). And maybe the dishwasher afterwards (doesn't have a delay timer to set it to wash overnight).
• The washing machine does have a delay timer so I usually use that. But I'm on my own and don't do many washes anyway, and rarely do I use the tumble drier.

So I'm wondering whether my energy use profile doesn't fit with Economy 7. My main concern would be the water heater. I guess that kicks in at about 01:00 and continues heating for 7 hours when the circuit switches off. Is that correct? There is an electronic timer but I'm not sure if that means I can only have it come on maybe for a couple of hours in the morning before I get up. I had hoped to include a pic of the timer but apparently I can't post links ...

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Oh I would ditch it.

What you want is a supplier standard variable tariff on a single rate.

Plenty of spammers on here will recommend you to Spam Energy, despite them never being the cheapest and having already announced their 3rd price increase this year.

Another good way to increase your cost is to turn all your portable heaters on full blast 24/7/365 and rely on opening your windows as necessary to control the temperature.

Perhaps consider investing in a few more portable heaters. You can probably pick them up for about a tenner each, but I would suggest you look at the Fischer Energy range. Get one of their salesman around who I'm sure will help you achieve your obvious quest.

:cool:

[Deleted User]

You do not need to ditch your Eco 7 meter, and Eco 10 is a big mistake.Eco 7 rates can be better than single rates
Suppliers do not normally exchange meters to a single tariff as they can all total the day/night and bill single rate.
Hit the comp sites armed with a selection of day/ night percentages. Advice on here is erroneous with the mantra of needing approx 30% night rate units to make it pay.
In my area the rates are so good for Eco 7 they are beating the best rates for single rates regardless of night rate consumption.
Current rates with Yorkshire Energy on their fixed Green Puffin tariff for a split of 4000 kwh s day and 1500 kwhs night are ..
.DAY RATE is 11.5 p kwh,
NIGHT RATE rate is 11.02 p kwh with a standing charge of 19.5 p day.
I can t beat those rates for 5500 kwhs on a single rate fixed tariff anywhere in my area ...Dont ditch Eco 7 compare carefully and switch.
Not many suppliers can support Eco 10 so stick to Eco 7 and the last thing you want is a standard variable tariff with any of them. Prices are on the up, fix for the year.

macman

Time to replace the old E7 heaters then. You are heating using panel heaters on E7 day rate-this is about 4 times more than night rate.
If you switch to a single rate meter then you will pay about 250% more than using NSH's and an immersion heater as intended for your heating and DHW.
The vast majority of your energy use is heating and hot water, not cooking, washing machine etc.

ajm71

Thanks for all the replies. All a bit confusing! I take meter readings every week and enter them into a spreadsheet, so I think I need to review that to see what my day/night % is. However, what's occurred to me is that the water heater is on for the full 7 hours overnight and there's nothing I can do about it. I checked it out earlier to see if I could time it to only come on for 2 of the 7 hours .. no such luck. I cycled the timer's clock through the hours and it fired up the lower element consistently when the clock struck 00:40, and off again at 07:40. Setting a 2 hour time period ("timed boost" it says on the timer) did absolutely nothing.

So that kinda sways my night% figures making them larger than I'd like them to be. I can't get a new timer (renting) so I guess I'm stuck on E7.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding my timer's functionality. I've taken a pic of it. I can't post links yet but the pic's at i.imgur.com/z52Kmf8.jpg